Yam Computers in Radiology

Using
PowerPoint
to Create
High-
Resolution
Images

Using PowerPoint to Create

High-Resolution Images for
Journal Publications
Chun-Shan Yam1 OBJECTIVE. In this article, I describe the essential steps for using PowerPoint to create
high-resolution images for radiology journal publications.
Yam C-S CONCLUSION. PowerPoint 2003 can be used as an alternative to create high-resolution
images for journal publications without the need for other image-processing software.

ecently, I gave a presentation at a turer’s default setting for Image Export

R 12 noon conference in our depart-

ment about using PowerPoint
2003 (Microsoft) to prepare digi-
tal images for journal publications. At the
first glance of my title slide, some of my au-
dience had puzzled looks on their faces won-
dering if my talk was just another tutorial on
how to use PowerPoint. However, it was the
second slide—“Using PowerPoint 2003 to
Create 5" × 7" 300 dpi TIFF Images”—that
stunned everyone in the room. At the end of
my presentation, many in the audience were
amazed to learn of PowerPoint’s capability to
produce high-resolution images while others
were delighted to learn how to use Power-
Point as an alternative for creating images and
illustrations for journal publications without
the need for other image-processing software
such as Photoshop (Adobe Systems). In this
article, I describe how to use this little-known
feature in PowerPoint 2003. I also show how
to use this feature to create quality illustra-
tions for radiology journal publications.
is configured at the low-resolution setting
(i.e., either 72 or 96 dpi). To enable high-res-
olution, one must add an optional registry pa-
rameter at the system registry file (i.e., Ex-
portBitmapResolution) to specify the output
image resolution. The instructions for adding
this parameter are documented at Microsoft’s
Web site [1].
Figure 1 is a screen capture of the system
registry of my PC system (Windows XP Pro-
fessional, Microsoft) after I added this param-
eter. I set the image resolution parameter at 300
dpi because this image resolution is commonly
required by radiology journals. To simplify
this task, I have included a registry file in Ap-
pendix 1 that can be used to insert this param-
eter automatically for PowerPoint 2003 in
Windows XP. Users can download this file
onto their desktop and run it by double-click-
ing on the file icon; see Appendix 1 for details.
This will insert the parameter into the system
registry. Subsequently, images exported from
PowerPoint 2003 will be set at 300 dpi.

Enabling the High-Resolution Feature Case Demonstration

Received October 26, 2004; accepted after revision
December 14, 2004.
1Department of Radiology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
Center, 1 Deaconess Rd., WCC, Rm. 306, Boston, MA 02215.
Address correspondence to C.-S. Yam
(csyam@caregroup.harvard.edu).
AJR 2005;185:273–276
0361–803X/05/1851–273
© American Roentgen Ray Society
in PowerPoint 2003
Unlike the older versions of PowerPoint
(i.e., 97, 2000, and XP) for which the resolu-
tion of the exported images was limited to the
computer screen resolution—for example,
usually 72 or 96 dots per inch (dpi), Power-
Point 2003 allows users to customize the im-
age resolution to higher values. This useful
feature does not appear in the File menu and
is also not documented in the Help menu in
PowerPoint 2003, but detailed instructions
are available at the Microsoft Web site [1].
Because this feature is optional, the manufac-
The process of creating high-resolution
images from PowerPoint 2003 is similar to
preparing a typical slide presentation except
that the Save As function under the File
menu is used to export a given slide to an im-
age format. For demonstration, I discuss the
steps that are essential for creating a stan-
dard 5 × 7 inch TIFF image from a slide. In
this example, I used a CT image in Bitmap
format that I downloaded from our PACS
Web browser. Any other source of digital
images can also be used for this purpose, and
the details about acquiring digital images for

AJR:185, July 2005 273

 Yam

Fig. 1—Screen capture of Registry Editor in Windows XP Professional operating sys- Fig. 2—Screen capture of Page Setup pop-up window in PowerPoint 2003
tem (Microsoft) shows “ExportBitmapResolution” parameter for setting output (Microsoft) shows settings for creating 5 × 7 inch slide.
image to 300 dots per inch. User can double-click on this parameter to enter another
resolution value.

Fig. 3—Screen capture shows CT image inserted into PowerPoint (Microsoft) slide
using drag-and-drop function. It also shows action of resizing an image to best fit
dimensions—that is, 5 × 7 inches. Note Picture toolbar shows commonly used
image-processing tools (e.g., color, contrast, brightness, crop, rotate, and so on).
Fig. 4—Screen capture of 16-MDCT image of heart (5-mm-thick maximum intensity
projection) of 55-year-old man scanned using LightSpeed 16 scanner (GE Health-
care). In this image, an arrow and a label, “A,” were drawn using drawing tools from
Drawing toolbar in PowerPoint 2003 (Microsoft). Note that using the arrow keys on
the keyboard while holding down the Control (Ctrl) key allows greater control of
object placement.

use in PowerPoint presentations have been
documented previously [2–4].
Step 1: Create a 5 × 7 Inch Slide Template
After launching the PowerPoint 2003 ap-
plication, a new presentation is created auto-
matically. If a blank presentation does not ap-
pear, go to the File menu and select New to
create one. Next, go to the File menu and se-
lect Page Setup to change the slide dimen-
sions to 5 × 7 inches (Fig. 2).
Step 2: Insert Picture into the Slide Template
Pictures can be inserted into a PowerPoint
slide using the Insert function (Insert → Pic-
ture → From File). This can also be accom-
plished using drag-and-drop: Simply locate
your image file and drag it onto the slide.
Once the image is inserted, click and drag
the corner of the image to resize it to the best
fit dimensions within the 5 × 7 inch area
(Fig. 3). Dragging the corner to resize will
maintain the aspect ratio of the image. I can
also use some of the built-in image-processing
tools (e.g., color, contrast, brightness, crop, ro-
tate, flip, and so on) to adjust the appearance of
the image. These tools can be found in the Pic-
ture and Drawing toolbars. If these toolbars are
not displayed, go to the View menu and click
the Toolbars function to select the toolbars that
you need. However, for this sample CT image,
I did not need to use any of these tools. Again,
details for using image-processing tools in
PowerPoint have been previously documented

274 AJR:185, July 2005

 Using PowerPoint to Create High-Resolution Images

Fig. 5—Screen captures show steps for exporting slide and saving as TIFF file.
A, Screen capture shows Save As window for exporting finished slide to TIFF image. This function can be accessed
from File menu. Multiple images can also be saved simultaneously if presentation contains more than one slide.
When multiple images are saved with Every Slide option selected, images will be saved as: Slide1, Slide2…within
a folder labeled with a given file name. TIFF images then can be renamed.
B, Screen capture of Properties window shows dimensions (2,100 × 1,500 pixels) and resolution (300 dots per inch)
of sample TIFF image file (Fig. 5A.tif). This information is displayed under Summary tab.

A B

[2–4], and most radiologists are already famil-
iar with using these functions in preparing their
presentations.
Step 3: Add Arrows and Labels to Images
Arrows and labels are common drawing ob-
jects added to radiologic images to highlight
specific features. To enable the arrow-drawing
function, left-click the Arrow button from the
Drawing toolbar (Fig. 4). Then, left-click on
the image to select the starting position of the
arrow to be drawn. While still holding down
the mouse button, drag it to the final position
and then release. An arrow will be placed on
top of the image. To change the size, pattern,
and color, simply double-click on the arrow
and adjust the corresponding values in the For-
mat AutoShape pop-up window.
These functions are also available in the
Drawing toolbar. In this example, the arrow
that I used was a solid black four-point line.
Similarly, I inserted a label, “A,” next to this
arrow using the Text Box function. Next, I
used the keyboard arrows while holding
down the Control key (Ctrl) to fine-tune the
placement of the drawing objects (e.g., arrow,
label, rectangle, and so on).
Step 4: Export Slide to TIFF Image
To export the finished slide to an image
file, go to the File menu and select the Save
As function. In the Save As window, select
TIFF as the output format and then name the
file and select the location (Fig. 5A). In this
example, I named my file Figure 5A and
saved it to the desktop. To verify the image
resolution, simply right-click on the ex-
ported image and select the Properties func-
tion from the drop-down menu. Figure 5B is
a screen capture of the Properties window of
Figure 5A that shows the image resolution is
300 dpi; note that all the figures that appear
in this article were created using this
method. Alternatively, one can also print the
image directly to a photo printer for hard-
copy manuscript submission.
Compatibility Issues
Based on my experience using PowerPoint
2003 to create high-quality images for manu-
script submission for almost a year, I do not
see any drawbacks. The only requirement is
that you need to have a copy of PowerPoint
2003. However, at the time of this writing,
PowerPoint 2003 has already been available
for more than a year (since May 2003). Our
institution has already started to roll out Mi-
crosoft Office 2003, which includes Power-
Point 2003. Because Microsoft Office is an
essential software application, many aca-
demic institutions will be upgrading to this
software in the near future. Furthermore, Mi-
crosoft has announced that this high-resolu-
tion feature will be available for all future
PowerPoint versions. This high-resolution
feature is also available for Macintosh com-
puters (Apple Computer) in the latest Mi-
crosoft Office versions (Office 2001 and X).
Limitations
Although this feature is adequate for gener-
ating images for journal publications, other ra-
diology applications that require higher resolu-
tion images and more complex graphics may
require more sophisticated software such as
Adobe Photoshop [5]. Also, the images ex-
ported from PowerPoint 2003 will be in
red–green–blue (RGB) format, not cyan–ma-
genta–yellow–black (CMYK) or gray-scale
format. Based on my experience, although
some journals (e.g., Radiology and Radio-
Graphics) require the image files to be submit-
ted in these two specific formats for final prints,
they accept images in RGB format as long as
the image resolution meets the requirements
(Harmon SP, personal communication). Fur-
thermore, if drawing objects (e.g., arrow and la-
bel) are required to be saved in separate layers,
two copies of the images (one clean and one an-
notated) may be required. Finally, regardless of
the method chosen for creating high-resolution
images for journal publications, starting with
good-quality source images is essential.
Conclusion
PowerPoint 2003 can be used as an alterna-
tive to create high-resolution images for jour-
nal publications without the need for other
image-processing software.

AJR:185, July 2005 275


References
1. Microsoft Web site. Microsoft help and support.
Available at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.as
px?scid = kb;en-us;827745. Accessed April 11, 2005
2. Schreibman KL. Getting images into PowerPoint.
AJR 2001; 177:1271–1272
APPENDIX 1. Registry File for Setting Image Resolution to 300 Dots per Inch (dpi) in PowerPoint 2003, Windows XP
Instructions
Step 1—Copy and paste the following
three registry statements to a text editor (e.g.,
Notepad [Microsoft]).
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Micro
soft\Office\11.0\PowerPoint\Options]
“ExportBitmapResolution” = dword:0000012c
276
Yam
3. Lababede O. Digital image editing using Power-
Point. 1. Introduction to the image-manipulation
commands. AJR 2004; 183:847–851
4. Lababede O. Digital image editing using
PowerPoint. 2. Practical applications of the
Step 2—Save the file with the file extension
“reg” (e.g., 300DPI.reg) on your desktop.
Step 3—Double click the file.
Remarks
This particular registry file will work on
PowerPoint 2003 (Microsoft) and Windows
XP (Microsoft) only. For settings for other
Windows operating systems and future ver-
image-manipulation commands. AJR 2004;
183:853–858
5. Stern EJ, Richardson M. Preparation of digital im-
ages for presentation and publication. AJR 2003;
180:1523–1531
sions of PowerPoint, refer to the official in-
structions provided by Microsoft at the Mi-
crosoft Web site [1].
Although this one-time registration pro-
cess is trivial for experienced computer users,
other users should be careful at all times when
working with Windows registry because even
a minor typing error in the registry can crash
your operating system.
AJR:185, July 2005